Steve Laipply, BlackRock iShares
The Entire US Bond Market in One Ticker
Steve Laipply runs the iShares Fixed Income ETF business at BlackRock, overseeing roughly a trillion dollars in bond ETF assets. His path into the category was almost an accident. He was an investor in his personal account, tried to buy a single two-year Treasury note, found the process broken, and a colleague told him to just buy a bond ETF instead. He joined BGI (the iShares predecessor) shortly after, and the bond ETF category went from a sleepy corner of the market to the price-setting layer for fixed income.
The Bond ETF Category Almost Didn't Exist
Bond ETFs were not an obvious idea when iShares launched them in 2002. Equity ETFs had existed for nearly a decade by then. The skepticism inside the industry was structural. The OTC bond market did not trade like equities, dealer inventory had collapsed after the financial crisis, and the consensus position was that an exchange-traded vehicle could not function reliably on top of an inventory-driven, opaque underlying. iShares built it anyway. Two decades later, bond ETFs are routinely the price discovery vehicle the underlying market converges toward.
What BTOT Captures That the Agg Doesn't
The case for BTOT is the structural gap inside the Bloomberg Aggregate. The Agg is the benchmark every fixed income desk anchors to, but it intentionally leaves out chunks of the market that have grown materially over the last two decades. High yield, Treasury inflation-protected securities, securitized credit, and other slices sit outside the Agg by index rules, not by economic significance. BTOT was built to capture the total investable US bond market in a single wrapper, including the parts the Agg misses, with the duration and credit profile of the full market rather than a curated subset.
Duration Extension When Money Markets Still Pay
The harder question Steve gets from advisors right now is duration. Money market funds and Treasury bills still yield in the high threes. The implied question is, why move out the curve at all? Steve's answer is grounded in math, not a market call. The convexity of an intermediate-duration portfolio works for you when the curve eventually normalizes, and waiting for the first rate cut is waiting too long because the bond market will have already priced in the path. He frames it as a curve-positioning decision about where you want to be sitting when reinvestment risk inside the front end starts to matter, not a timing trade.
Bond ETF Prices as Leading Indicators
Steve's most interesting research is on price discovery during stress. In March 2020, the OTC bond market effectively froze. Dealers pulled inventory, quotes widened to the point of being meaningless, and many bond funds had to mark to model rather than mark to market. Bond ETFs like LQD kept trading on exchange the entire time. The post-event analysis showed that LQD's intraday price was the more accurate signal during the dislocation, and the OTC market converged toward the ETF rather than the other way around. That inverts how the industry has historically thought about price discovery in fixed income, and it changes the standing of bond ETFs inside institutional portfolios.
BTOT and BINC as a Pair
BlackRock's positioning is that BTOT is the beta anchor and BINC, the active fixed income fund Rick Rieder runs, is the alpha sleeve. The pair is designed to sit together rather than compete. BTOT gives full market exposure cleanly and at index cost. BINC tilts and overweights inside the same opportunity set with security selection. The pitch to advisors and allocators is that you don't have to choose between passive bond exposure and active fixed income. You can hold both and let each do what it's built for.
Individual Bonds vs. ETFs
Steve addresses the individual bond vs. ETF debate directly. Holding individual bonds gives you a defined maturity and a known cash flow, which is real, but it also concentrates idiosyncratic credit risk, requires meaningful capital to diversify, and exposes the investor to dealer markups that the ETF wrapper compresses through creation and redemption. For most allocators, the ETF gives better diversification per dollar, tighter execution, and intraday liquidity. For investors with specific maturity needs, individual bonds still have a role, but the case for them is narrower than it used to be.
Key Takeaways
- BTOT captures the total investable US bond market in one wrapper, including the slices the Bloomberg Aggregate excludes by index rules rather than by economic significance.
- The duration extension call into intermediate bonds is a curve-positioning decision, not a market call on when rate cuts start.
- In March 2020, bond ETFs like LQD were more accurate price discovery vehicles than the underlying OTC market, and the underlying converged toward the ETF.
- BTOT and BINC are built to pair as a beta anchor plus active alpha sleeve, not as a choose-one decision for fixed income allocators.
- The individual bond vs. ETF case has narrowed materially over two decades of category growth, with the ETF winning on diversification per dollar, execution, and liquidity for most use cases.
Listen to the Full Episode
This article is based on an episode of Behind the Ticker, hosted by Brad Roth, Founder and CIO of THOR Financial Technologies. For the full conversation with Steve Laipply on BTOT, the structural gaps in the Bloomberg Aggregate, bond ETF price discovery during stress, and how BTOT pairs with BINC, listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube.
Full Transcript
5,298 wordsMachine transcribed from Brad Roth's conversation with Steve Laipply, BlackRock iShares, with speakers identified automatically. Timestamps link to that moment on YouTube. Lightly cleaned, otherwise unedited.
Welcome to Behind the Ticker, the podcast where we go beyond the symbol and into the strategy. I'm Brad Roth, founder and chief investment officer at Thor Funds. And in each episode, I sit down with ETF managers, CIOs, and industry leaders to break down how these funds are actually built, how they behave in real markets, and how advisors use them in real portfolios. Most people just see a ticker symbol, but we know much more goes on behind the ticker.
Hey, Steve, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Brad.
So you're global co-head of iShares fixed income ETFs at BlackRock. You guys oversee, I don't know, I think a trillion dollars in bond ETFs. So can you take me back to the beginning? You got your undergrad finance in Miami. And then I believe I read you went to Wharton and got your MBA. So can you kind of walk me through your career path and how you ended up at BlackRock and maybe more
Specifically in the bond ETF world? Yeah, it's a little bit of a winding road. I did major in finance in Miami of Ohio and also computer science or MIS, I guess we called it back then. But I got very interested in bonds and fixed income, which is a bit of a weird thing, I guess as an undergrad, but I really zeroed in on that and I knew I wanted to do that. So I went to work for a regional bank, which was back then called Wachovia in Atlanta, ended up trading interest rate swaps there, went back to graduate school, as you said, and then ultimately took a job with Merrill Lynch in fixed income derivative structuring and had that job for a number of years, worked on interest rates,
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Some credit, mortgages, other securitized, things like that. But it was basically, a structuring job. And in the end, I spent a fair amount of time on structure product in the interest rate realm. I became over time more interested, and I guess this isn't super unique or special, but I did become interested in other parts of the industry and had some intermittent contact, with some buy side shops. But actually, the funny part about ETFs, what really got me interested in that, I was trying to buy a treasury note, a two year note, and I was struggling a little bit with it in terms of, the interface that, that I had my brokerage account, and also, quite frankly, the cost. And I had a colleague who basically said, why don't you just
Buy a bond ETF? And I almost fell on my chair. And I said, what do you mean? So she went on to explain that, yeah, there are these things now called bond ETFs. And, I had heard of equity ETFs. And so, lo and behold, I pulled up the iShares page, and I was pretty blown away. but back then, it was really a handful of treasury ETFs and LQD. But even then, I was amazed that you could have bonds traded on an exchange. So that sort of started the journey. I had made contact with what was then BGI. And someone who eventually became my boss, who was a pioneer in the industry, Matt Tucker.
He brought me over. And we, it was just basically a handful of us working on bond ETFs at the time. And it was a really exciting thing to be sort of at that early part of the industry. But Matt really kind of pioneered a lot of this. And I just sort of learned, from him, and we grew the
Business from there. So Miami, I regret not going to Miami of Ohio. I was accepted there. And I'm from Pittsburgh. So it was like a six hour drive. And I'm like, man, do I really want to make this drive every single holiday? But it is a beautiful place, beautiful campus. And so a little bit jealous you had that experience. But you did join BlackRock via a BGI acquisition, if I read that correctly, back in 2009. So that deal was basically, made, BlackRock, the iShares empire with like, what was it like taking part in that transition? being acquired by BlackRock is, a giant, a giant deal. So what was it like going from a standalone firm to being,
Part of the biggest asset manager on the planet?
Yeah, it was, it was interesting. People often ask me what was BGI like? And the truth is, I was only there just a couple months before the merger. And so I did join under the BGI umbrella. And then I don't know if you recall, but there were there were a series of conversations and discussions about various alternatives for the iShares business. the parent company, Barclays, PLC, I think it was well known then was was looking at different options on the back of the of the crisis. And, there were apparently some private equity folks who were interested in the business, etc. But ultimately, BlackRock came in and bought the entire asset management business.
And so, literally, it happened. I remember a headline scroll over Bloomberg, and everybody was like, Okay, wow. What I was impressed with, in terms of the transition was just how smooth and efficient it was. It really was. I remember I walked in one morning. And as I got out of an Uber, I looked up and there was a BlackRock sign on the building. And I got to my desk and the, my screen had a BlackRock screensaver on it. And there was a notebook and some other swag. And that all happened overnight. And so I was like, Okay, these guys have done this before. It's pretty impressive. But yeah, of course, we had, we had to get to know each other, we had a lot of
Learning a lot of back and forth, around what does this business look like? How does it interact with the active business in particular? How do we message that to clients, right? That was something that I think benefits us tremendously, modern day, because we struggled with that messaging early, right? Many, many years ago, how do you talk about, active and index together as a platform, because clients have strong views sometimes on on one or the other. And so I think it really benefited us to wrestle with that at the beginning. And I do think that we carry that message in somewhat of a unique way right now, which is it's not either or it's both,
Both, both works very, very well. So before we get too deep in the nitty gritty around, your ETF specifically in the bond world, what do you like to do for fun? Any hobbies when
You're not behind the desk? Well, I have three teenagers. So there's just not, there's not a whole lot of time for for fun. part time Uber driver, taking them to all their different things or what have you. But, I enjoy recreational things like skiing, I've studied martial arts for like 20 odd years. but it's, it's a full time job, with the chaos in the house. And I also end up traveling a fair amount for work. So whatever free time I have is, is pretty, is pretty rare and precious, I think. Yeah, well, it's, you know,
I'm teaching a four year old how to ski currently, and my back is happy that it is springtime and not winter here anymore, because I don't think, I don't think you could take another run. So let's talk about where we are in the bond market right now. The Fed's been on hold, yields have been a little choppy. Everyone's trying to figure out if we're headed for, a soft or a hard landing, or maybe no landing at all. From your seat, what are advisors kind of missing right now when they're thinking about fixed income?
Yeah, and I think this is, something that everybody talked about a lot a few years ago, right, which was, hey, are we going into a recession, the yield curves inverted, what do we do? And there was just a lot of speculation back and forth about, whether we were going to hit stall speed, and it just, month to month to month, it was always one data point swung you one direction, then another data point, moved you the other way. I do think what I've watched over the last couple of years, is that investors seem to be looking a little bit past that now and realizing that, the 10 year may be at 4%, it may be a four and a half,
Or it may start pushing five. But either way, the income opportunity right now is better than it's been in, 20 odd years, right. And so I think what we have seen in our flows sort of illustrate this is that advisors and investors, now are basically, I wouldn't say used to the volatility, but our understanding that income is kind of the, income's king, and you're going to weather some volatility, and it's impossible to call, the peak or the trough in rates. And so, hey, clip those coupons, build that cushion, and actually enjoy earning income and fixed income for the first time in many, many years in the universe now, the vast majority of it is still above 4%. If you go back to, 10 years ago,
That was definitely not the case. during COVID, we had a 10 year that was, pushing half a percent. So I think I think a lot of advisors, investors just recognize that I may not get the timing exactly right. But the income story is powerful.
Yeah. And so you've been pretty vocal about bond ETFs being almost a leading indicator for market stress. The idea is that ETF pricing and volumes can tell you something is wrong before it shows up in the bond market itself. So can you walk us through that thesis? And how does it actually
Work in practice? Yeah, this was something that really attracted me to the product early on. I was fascinated by this idea that, look, you can have individual bonds, that trade over the counter. And that's the world I came from. And, before you had trace, it was even harder to understand price discovery. But, trace came along and that was great. But the idea that you could have a portfolio of bonds trading, sometimes every single second of the day and more, right, was was amazing to me. And so decided to do a lot of research on that. And over the years, we've, we've written a fair number of academic, journal type studies on this. And, each time we go through a crisis, I become more and more convinced about the about the power of
Of the exchange and having that portfolio trading exchange. So, simply, we've done this study a couple times, but take something like LQD, right? So if you looked at LQD during, the spring of 2020, when when the pandemic was was really hitting markets, and, and, even investment grade credit was was struggling, right, in terms of trading and liquidity, LQD on certain days traded, 90 100,000 times on exchange, the top holdings in LQD, during that same period of time may have traded maybe like a dozen times. So which price are you going to believe something based on, 90,000 times or 100,000 times or something that's, a dozen times, right. And so that's the easy way for me to think about it. And the other
Thing is, just looking at the behavior of the exchange price versus NAV, NAV is something that we all work very hard at to try to make sure it's as accurate as possible. The fact is, though, that a lot of days, things aren't trading. And so the pricing services are forced to, estimate, etc, where, with the exchange, you have something that's real time, it's happening, people are putting a level on it. And and what we've seen is, is that the market price does lead, especially in stress markets, and eventually, the NAV and the market price come back together. But it was always very impressive to me to see how much the market price told you well before the bond market
Itself. And the bond market would tend to catch up with that market price on exchange.
Makes a ton of sense to me. And so thanks for diving into that. But let's get into the reason we're here. I'm going to call it BTOT, but BTOT, iShare, Total US Fixed Income Market ETF. You launched this back in December of 2025, just a couple of months ago, the pitch, at least the way I read it is basically, give me the entire US bond market in one ticker. So when I looked at it, it's about 838 holdings, it's got investment grade, high yield treasuries, secure, all of it. So why did
BlackRock feel like this product needed to exist? Yeah, this is a really interesting story and conversation. It actually grew out of the active side of our house. So our CIO, Rick Reeder, we were having a long discussion one day about why the indices weren't really capturing the market the way a lot of the folks on the active side thought it should, because we have a product, for example, on the active side called BINC, B-I-N-C, which is our multi-sector income fund that's run by Rick and his team. That product's able to go into parts of the bond market that, for example, the ag is not.
And so we had this long discussion about, hey, why are the indices not evolving as fast as the market itself? Because if you go back to the origins, right, let's go way, way back to, I think it was the early 70s when the ag started. Back then, it was probably just treasuries, right? And then eventually, you had credit and mortgages and high yield, et cetera, et cetera. Well, high yield came with the universal index. But over time, the bond market's grown quite quickly, especially in things like loans, floating rate, inflation-protected securities, et cetera. The major, major indices like the ag just haven't really kept up with that. And so it forces investors to do one of two things, which is to build it yourself. And we do now have those tools through ETFs. So you can put together
Your own ag or your own universal with different pieces. You can add tips, you can add loans, et cetera, et cetera. But what was lacking was an all-encompassing solution. And what we noticed was on the equity side, we actually have that. We have something called ITOT, which is the entire stock market. Everybody asked a very simple question, which was, well, why on earth don't we have that in the bond market? And so that was sort of the inspiration. I think on the active side, it was like, hey, the market should be keeping up. We need better indices. We need indices that capture the opportunities. And even then, it is a long way. On the active side, we're able to go into sectors and markets that BTOT's index still doesn't touch, but it will evolve over time. And that's the idea,
Is to be able to allow investors one-stop shopping, just like on the equity side, to be able to say, all right, I'm going to not only have the ag, but I'm going to have inflation protected. I'm going to have floating rate. I'm going to have bank loans, emerging markets, high yield, et cetera. And I can just basically say, that's my bond market exposure in my portfolio. And maybe that's for a person who really doesn't want to spend time thinking about what's the best bond market exposure. Maybe they would rather focus on the equity side, on thematics or factors or what have you. And so that was really
The idea. So you kind of walked me into my next question and maybe slightly answered it already, but BTOT tracks the Bloomberg US total fixed income market. Most advisors default. They're like, I'm just going to get ag exposure. And it's going to track the aggregate bond index. For the advisor listening who maybe defaults to ag, what does BTOT and your total fixed income index have that the
Bloomberg US aggregate bond index isn't including? Yeah. And the ag is the original workhorse, right? It was the first one. It's all investment grade, right? So the ag has treasuries, agencies, agency mortgages, investment grade corporates, investment grade CMBS, investment grade ABS, et cetera, right? And so it has an investment grade taxable muni. So it has a core multi-sector investment grade exposure. Now, that is a high quality exposure. And with that exposure comes duration, right? And so you have a duration that is pushing sort of close to six. Whereas, BTOT has things like inflation adjusted, tips, inflation protected securities, bank loans, investment grade floaters. You have emerging markets, you have high yield, you have other secure ties that will eventually come online as well. So it's broadening out in the
Way I think of it is you have kind of these concentric circles, right? So think of the ag as the core. Universal is a little bit broader, adding some high yield in EM. BTOT really broadens that out. So BTOT's about 20% bigger, or BTOT's universe rather is about 20% bigger than the ag, about 10% bigger than the universal. And so it's just this broadening out of exposure. And as a result, you have lower duration, but higher yield. So relative to the ag, I think it's something like a 30 basis point pickup. But the duration itself is around, 4.35, somewhere around there. So you're getting more yield, less duration, and you're getting some degree of inflation protection.
You're getting exposure to the floating rate part of the market. So if there is, for example, Fed hiking, right, you'll be able to participate in resets on that. But it's just, it gives you more
Tools. Yeah, for sure. And so I guess the question an advisor would, ask me or, ask you is, BTOT, when I looked, it's yielded sitting around 4.57, percent or so. And duration is about 5.38 years. Whenever I look this up, we know, we all know that changes. If I am an advisor, and I'm looking to park cash and money markets at zero duration, like, what is your case to them to say, hey, why should we extend out the curve and take on a little bit more duration risk for, a little bit more yield? Yeah, and that's, that's the interesting,
Interesting question. And that is the debate, right? And this is the one that, we're where I talked about timing, right? So right now, the average money market prime, if you just, sort of do a broad search on it is something like high threes, right? And that's probably after fees. As we know, money markets can, can come with with higher fees than some ETFs, right? And so you have, you have yields now that are still sort of, close to a four handle. If you look at something like BTOT, you have north of that. And the question is, why would I do that when I have zero duration risk? And the answer is, because you're not going to be able to time the market. The other thing is what we
Just talked about, which was, the idea that with money markets, yeah, you're getting a coupon return, you're getting a stable NAV. But in something like an inflationary environment, or if there's, action in the, in Fed policy, or etc, that's a very, very limited tool, right? To be able to, to be able to really, really protect yourself against different market environments, you may see a repricing in the credit markets, you may see a repricing in the treasury market. By the time you get there, by extending out the curve, it's probably already too late, right? And so it's always that thing. And it's, and it's a good discussion. And the answer is something that I think is maybe a little bit boring and unsatisfactory,
But maybe it's not, again, either or maybe it's both. Hold some amount of cash, right? Because yeah, short term yields are attractive. But you should also start thinking about extending out. And I guess, basically, legging into that core part of your fixed income exposure while yields are where they are. Could they go higher? Sure. But your risk is, is that they go much, much lower. You don't know when we may have, a sharp slowdown, etc. And that's something that, if you're building a long term portfolio, that's, in my view, the way to do it.
Yeah, no, I would agree. One of the interesting things that you said is, BTOT is, is including high yield bonds alongside investment grades, a lot of, you and I have seen thousands of diversified passive portfolios and kind of high yield always has its own little sleeve. So what was the decision point here? Just saying, let's just include high yield in here. Let's make it a lot simpler. Is it really that simple, I guess, of a decision as to why you just put everything in this and said, let's just simplify, the fixed income exposure on, more passive ETF
Like portfolios? Yeah, I think I think it's it is that simple. And again, I go back to that sort of thought of like these concentric circles, right? The ag being sort of a core, the universal and the product that we have for that is IUSB that tracks universal. That's a that's a broadening. So you take ag, you add some high yield NEM, right? And then BTOT builds on that, right? So then you add investment grade floaters, you add tips, you add bank loans, etc. And that's sort of, so you're continually broadening out the market. BTOT's index eventually will evolve into more corners of the securitized market, etc. And so it's just this trying to capture as much of the bond market as you can in a one stop format, right? And that way, for an advisor who basically said,
Like we talked about, I don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about this, I just want to have a, set and forget bond portfolio, and I'm going to focus on other things. It could be equities, could be alts, whatever. But that that could be your anchor, right? And that's sort of the role we view fixed income playing in general is it's the income part of the portfolio, it's it's anchor, it's ballast, it's something that you should not spend a huge amount of time stressing about. And again, going back and sticking to my religion here. Yes, you should do both, right? So you can have BTOT and you can add something like bank to augment that, right? And go into areas where BTOT cannot go. And that's kind of how we message it, right? And so we think it's a really
Nice solution to have like a very broad, core fixed income allocation, and then you can enhance that with with active exposures around it.
So let's pivot a little bit. I think I think I already know the answer to this question, but I got to ask it. So I get this from advisors all the time, especially like during 2022, when the bond market was a little fidgety, they say, Why do I need a bond ETF when I can just buy individual bonds and hold them to maturity and never worry about, the mark to market risks that come with bond ETFs? Again, you've probably heard this 1000 times. What's your answer?
Yeah. And I think, there are a few important points, right? One, individual bonds can be expensive. And, even now, the tools are great, right? We've come a long way from the early days in the market, where it was very, very hard, you may get prices that are several points apart by just talking to different dealers. We've come a long way, a lot of things are electronically traded. A lot of the, the online platforms make it really easy to buy bonds. But in the end, I would say that the power of a bond ETF is still is still really compelling. So as an example, an LQD, for example, right, you have well over 1000 bonds, a penny wide, you're
Not going to be able to do that trade in the underlying market full stop ever, it's really hard to do. Even now, on the institutional side, you have things called portfolio trades. But those trades are based on an ETF powering them, right? And so it's just it's very, very hard to replicate the ETF experience in the over the counter market. The other part that I think is less appreciated is just the efficiency and scalability. So you don't have to have a lot of money to be able to get very broad exposure, right? So, you could buy one share of BTOT and have exposure to literally, 20 odd thousand securities. that's, that's pretty amazing, if you think about it, the ability to do that. So, my, my sons are investing with with summer money aren't
Starting to invest in ETFs. And they they are understanding now that you don't need a lot of money to get this very broad exposure. Now, I don't think they appreciate it like I do, because they didn't have to wrestle with individual bonds. But I think, it's really interesting that you can have a very, not huge wallet and still be able to get access to a lot of different securities. And I think that scalability is powerful. And it kind of democratizes the market for everybody. You don't need to be a big institution to be able to get a diversified portfolio. And I think
That's really compelling. Well, it's good to hear, your sons are investing in ETFs and not
Meme coins. So you've done something. that could be going on as well. But, but, I try to keep them anchored and, and, sort of the keep it simple philosophy. Yeah. So
Let's like go to education a little bit. BlackRock publishes more fixed income thought leadership than probably anyone else on the planet. You've written pieces on bond ETFs as leading indicators on the role of ETFs and market structures, for an advisor who wants to get smarter about fixed income, where should they start? Like what's one piece of content or framework that an advisor should start with to, that you guys maybe publish or an area that they should focus on? Well, I, it's, it's funny
Because we do have a piece coming out in a few weeks that I think would be, would be perfect. But since it's not out and it's not completely through compliance, I can't actually talk about it. We do this every year. We publish these pieces. We've done it for many, many years now. I think last year's piece was called innovation meets opportunity. And it talks about how through time innovation and bond ETFs has really, it's really powered advisor and investor portfolios, right? It's, it's, it's made that experience like we just talked about so much more scalable, diversified, resilient. And it talks a lot about how all these new tools have now come into the market that weren't even there five years ago.
And the power of that and the what it affords you in terms of building a portfolio that, that just wouldn't have been possible. Right. And especially trying to do it again in the underlying market. Um, I, I think it's amazing what investors can do in fixed income today with ETFs, index, active outcome, um, you name it. Um, you, you can do a lot now, um, that was simply impossible even a few
Years ago. Yeah. that's, that's why we're seeing a ton of innovation in the space and, it's come a long, long way just even the last, five years. But I, I would be remiss if I didn't have an opportunity to ask you, this question, somebody who's had a long, longer successful career, you can go back and give yourself one piece of advice when you were first getting started in this business, maybe not about markets or about actual practice building. Um, but um, a career, what would it be? I think the most important thing,
Um, and, and I have to remind myself of this all the time. And so as an example, um, okay, I'm a bond guy. Um, but I think learning about digital assets, um, learning about tokenization, learning about this new world that, that we're embarking on, that's going to intersect with the bond market at some point. Right. And so I would say, be intellectually curious, always, um, force yourself to do it right. Even if it's way outside of your comfort zone, because one way or another, whether it's AI, whether it's, tokenization, what have you, this will come to you. Right. So it's better for you to, start early and, and really try to, to get up to speed, um, than be, kind of racing to catch up. I think just always try to maintain that
Intellectual curiosity. And, the other thing would be, um, don't force yourself, um, into a career just because somebody says you should do it right. Or, or that, well, my brother did this or my cousin did this or, or whatever. And, oh, I hear the money's okay. And you, you, in order, I think to be successful, you actually kind of actually have to like what you do. You really have to, um, get up in the morning and be excited about it. And sometimes that's hard and it takes time to uncover what that is, but that would be the other part. You really do, I think to be successful long-term, you have to love what you do. And so I would say, be patient with that and, and really make an effort to find out what that is.
Well, Steve, I, I really appreciate you spending some time with me today. It's been great. It's hard to make fixed income, no offense. It's hard to make fixed income, like super interesting. And you did a great job of, of, of relaying that and, and, and giving us some education. So before I let you go there, where can people go to learn more about BlackRock, iShares and BTOT?
Yeah. So you can go to blackrock.com and specifically on iShares, iShares.com. There's, um, a little search bar, just type in BTOT. Um, and, and there's a whole journey you can go through, um, in our, in our fixed income ETF suite to really, um, find out, um, all the different offerings that are, that are available now. Like I said, the toolkit, um, is, is pretty amazing now, um, even compared to, like you said, five years ago. So there's a lot, uh, to explore there.
Well, again, Steve, thanks so much for being here with me today. Thanks for having me, Brad.
Bye.
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